Live or Survive
by PoisonMffn
Summary: Steve and Jake have lived in this World for a time they can't even fathom. Once they begin to open their eyes to what's around them, they begin to live for the first time.
1. Wake Up

"Stop."

I put down the wood on my crafting table and turned around to see Jake standing over a couple of furnaces filled with the iron we had just found. He was looking at me as if he had just discovered something.

"This just doesn't make any sense."  
I thought I may as well humor him. "What Jake?"  
"This, all over this," he said waving his arms around the basement, "doesn't make sense. It just occurred to me..."  
"It makes perfect sense; the basement is for our inventory and it's symmetrical so we don't fight about whose decorating style is better."  
"This isn't about the style, Steve; it's about everything. Doesn't it seem a bit off to you? The house? Our cattle? The sky? The whole world?" Jake wasn't exactly the philosophical type, so it started to worry me. "Every day is the same like it's always been where we just mess around and mine, gather wood, build a little, eat when we're hungry, and sleep until the Sun rises and we start again. Sometimes we're so busy that we don't even sleep!"  
"What's so bad about this life?"  
"It doesn't feel real, none of it. It's like sometimes I don't even feel pain or hunger, I just know that I am." Unfortunately he started making sense; sometimes I would sleep just because I felt that I was supposed to.

Life really wasn't that bad. This World had everything we needed to survive, we never had anything to fight over except for small rarities, and it was just us.

At least that's what we've been believing for the past few... weeks? Months? Everything seemed so surreal... But it only seemed that way because of us ignoring the smallest little details surrounding us, and the biggest detail that was never imagined until Jake finally asked:

"I mean do you even remember how we got here, Steve?"


	2. Mine, Craft, Repeat

I quickly turned back around to avoid Jake's eyes. How could he ask that? _I mean do you even remember how we got here, Steve?_ Do I remember?

"Think on that for as long as you want, I've already tried. Every day seems like a blur and it gets fuzzier the longer I try to think back."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said sharply. "Whatever it is you're trying to do, it won't work. Just stop fantasizing and take out that iron."

Instead of hearing an furnace door opening, I only Jake's footsteps return upstairs. I could tell that this had been on his mind and that he really wanted to hear my opinion on it, so I understood how bitter I must have sounded. The only reason I wouldn't answer him seriously was because I couldn't. I can remember the conversation we just had a moment ago, I can remember mining this morning, I can remember waking up, and I can remember what we did yesterday and the day before that. Beyond then makes my head begin to ache.

I called Jake's name and started after him up the stairs. He was on the second story underneath the roof about to get ready for bed. "It's not even dark yet."

"I've just had enough for today, you keep working downstairs," he said with his back turned to me.

"Look I don't know what's going on but-"

"It's fine, alright?" he replied looking back at me. "Do whatever you want, I'm getting some rest before tomorrow." With that, he ended the conversation by laying down facing away from me. I could feel his coldness from his back and walked away without another word.

I stayed up a bit longer before the Sun went down and finished up our job downstairs. Our loot from today's mining was smelted and put away, and I finished fixing our pickaxes along with making a couple of new ones with our new materials. I couldn't help but imagine what Jake was thinking of right now while I was cleaning up. He has never been like this before, so why now? Nothing out of the ordinary happened while we were mining. Lots of coal, good amount of iron, no diamonds yet in either of our sectioned off caves; it's been relatively the same for the longest time. There wasn't anything to get under his skin like this. Unless the repetitiveness got to him.

It was starting to get dark after I finished in the basement when I decided to bring the new and improved pickaxes to our mining chests down in the mine's makeshift outpost. I opened the door into the night and walked to the hut that housed a ladder into the depths of the World. I climbed and walked down the stony maze of caverns until I reached the point where we would split up. I went through my section and replaced the old tools then walked back to his. When I placed them in his chest, I noticed that there were a few more items in his chest than mine, and new ones too. There was some forgotten coal and stone, along with some bits of gold stony dust that seemed to glow; I didn't even know gold came in a powder. Below that was something I didn't think Jake would hide from me.

A diamond. Three of them! Why would he not want me to see this? We've been searching this mine forever and each day we tell each other that we both came up empty handed. What was he planning to do with them? _Do whatever you want, I'm getting some rest before tomorrow_. Tomorrow? Was he planning something tomorrow?

I found out when I saw his paper diagram.

Diamond gems... pickaxe... some dark rocks... and a gateway.


End file.
